Locals master the Southland

Published 4:00 am, Friday, February 4, 2000

bLOS ANGELES - Cal knew what had to be done to stop USC. All the Bears needed to do was consider what happened in the Trojans' last game.

In a record-breaking performance, the Trojans hit 20 3-pointers in an easy win over Oregon State Saturday.

Against the Bears Thursday night, the Trojans were held to 3-for-20 from the 3-point arc.

The result was a 66-62 win for Cal at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. The loss dropped USC (13-7, 6-2) out of a tie for first place in the Pac-10 and improved the Bears to 12-8, 3-5.

"What an unbelievable performance," Cal coach Ben Braun said, referring to USC's 20-for-29 3-point game in Corvallis, Ore., which set a Pac-10 record. "That's something we took as a personal challenge."

Freshman point guard Shantay Legans, who spent much of the night contesting USC's big guns on the perimeter, said the Bears, for the first time this year, played defense truly as a team.

"This is the first time nobody was saying, 'That's my man, that's your man,' " Legans said. "Everybody was just putting a hand up. Every shot was contested."

Legans was often matched up with Trojans guard Brandon Granville, who came into the game with 36 3-pointers on the year. He finished Thursday with no more 3-pointers and just five points.

And the Bears did it without much help from forward Sean Lampley, the team's leading scorer, who spent much of the night on the bench in foul trouble.

"Our leader is out. Our scorer is

out," Legans said of the team's mood when Lampley got his third foul. "We've got to pick up the slack." Legans led the team in scoring with 12 points and center Nick Vander Laan added 11.

"We struggled for points," Braun said. "But thankfully we were playing great defense."

Lampley, who came in averaging 16.9 points per game, had just eight in 18 minutes.

He did make a significant - and symbolic - contribution late in the game. USC's leading scoring, center Brian Scalabrine, who led both teams with 25 points, had just tied the game, 59-59, with a basket-rattling dunk with 21/2 minutes left. Lampley answered at the other end with an equally show-stopping dunk, giving the Bears the lead for good.

"Those were two of his biggest points of the year," Braun said.

As a final irony, the Bears kept their lead down the stretch by hitting free throws. Last Saturday, Cal lost to Washington, 54-52, in a game in which the Bears were a collective 9-for-21 from the line.

"I've been shooting about 100 free throws a day since then," said Vander Laan, who sank two at the 1-minute, 45-second mark. Gates missed one and hit the second.

And finally, Legans, who missed a free throw with a minute and a half left, sank two with less than a second on the clock to put the game away.

"I knew I was going to make them," he said.

Braun would probably say that attitude was typical of his team this night.

"They didn't show any fear," he said. "There's not a team in the league who's been playing better than USC right now. . . . And we established ourselves defensively tonight.

"We made a statement," he said.

This was the Bears' second Pac-10 road win of the year. This trip concludes Saturday with a game against UCLA at Pauley Pavilion. &lt;